


Leptidea juvernica

by DarthAbby



Series: Butterflies and Spiders [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Butterfly Effect, Gen, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 01:11:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAbby/pseuds/DarthAbby
Summary: Leptidea juvernica, the Cryptic White Butterfly. Rare, recently discovered, and difficult to study.A little white butterfly can change a lot... surely a little white-suited spider can change even more.Or, Gwen Stacy chooses not to sit by and wait this time.





	Leptidea juvernica

Single choices can make or break the world. Or, worlds – choices, different paths, that’s what makes the splinters that form into their own universes, their own stories. Maybe not quite so large-scale as a butterfly creating a hurricane, but choices matter. They always do.

A girl gets bit by a spider. She chooses to become Spider-Woman.

She sees a monster on the rampage. She chooses to take him down with deadly force.

She realizes her terrible mistake. She chooses to do better, to be a hero.

She gets sucked into an alternate reality.

That’s not a choice.

She discovers that Spider-Woman is Spider- _Man_ in this reality. She tracks him down.

That _is_ a choice.

* * *

Spider-Man is loved by this New York, to the point where he has revealed his secret identity to the public, and… it’s fine.

Gwen’s not sure what she’s more upset about – that this Spider-Man doesn’t have to run from the cops, or that this Spider-Man is Peter Parker.

At least she knows where to start.

May Parker (no Ben, though, and doesn’t that just sting something fierce) still lives in the quiet suburbs of Queens. It’s the same house that Gwen remembers from her own universe – the house that she all but grew up in, spending almost more time with the Parkers than at the too-quiet Stacy home next door.

The thought gives her a moment’s pause, and she pulls up the hood of the jacket snagged from a donation bin. She doesn’t need to be recognized as Gwen Stacy – not here. Not now.

May looks older, but not by too much.

“Can I help you, young lady?”

“Is Peter Parker here?”

May’s expression settles from politely confused to politely understanding. “You must be another fan. No, he doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“I’m afraid I’m not in the habit of giving my nephew’s address to strangers, Miss –?”

“Stacy,” Gwen says, throwing caution to the wind and pushing her hood back. “My name is Gwen Stacy. I’m from a different universe. I need help.”

May, to her credit, doesn’t even blink at the revelation. “Well, this isn’t the strangest start to a Tuesday morning I’ve had, but it’s up there. Come inside – I’ll call Peter.”

* * *

Peter is tall. _Really_ tall – Gwen wonders if it’s because of the spider bite, or if he just hit a late growth spurt that her Peter never had the chance to get to.

He’s also blonde, which is weird. And the first thing out of his mouth, when he walks into May’s kitchen, where Gwen is at the table with a cup of tea, her own spider sense ringing, is –

“You’re like me – how –?”

“I’m from another universe. I’m Spider-Woman there.” She holds out a hand. “Gwen Stacy.”

Something guilty, and almost painful, flashes through Peter’s eyes, but he shakes her hand. “How did you get here, then?”

“I don’t know. But we need to figure it out so that I can go home. And probably stop a super villain from blowing up the city of whatever.”

“Yeah, there’s always something evil going on,” Peter sighs and shakes his head. “Okay, come on. Let’s take a swing around town.”

(The media, of course, looses its collective mind over the sight of _two_ Spiders web-slinging through Midtown. And in Brooklyn, a kid pauses in the middle of his sticker-tagging to watch the footage and dream.)

* * *

Seismic activity centered around Fisk Tower, a trail that Peter painstakingly followed for weeks, zigzagging from shell company to shell company, and the breakthrough he’s been looking for falls into Gwen’s lap after just two days in this universe.

It’s an ad that pops up on Google for her, following a few… _interesting_ searches about scientific shit that’s definitely giving her a headache.

_Apply for an internship at Alchemax! Rolling applications for students in high school – start yours now!_

“Peter.”

“Hm?” He doesn’t even look up from the webshooter he’s fiddling with.

“Look at this – didn’t you say Alchemax was the next place to look?”

He looks over the ad and clicks on it, opening up a form. “Would you look at that,” he mutters. “I can’t pass for high school anymore – but _you_ can.”

“I should hope so,” Gwen snorts. “I’m fifteen.”

“You start filling that out – _I’ll_ hop on the other computer and slip you into a school around here.”

“I don’t have to actually attend, though, do I? High school sucks.”

“That it does,” Peter grimaces. “Don’t worry, I’ll just add a record for you and fake a couple letters of recommendation from a teacher or two.” He pauses. “Uh – you can’t go by Gwen Stacy, though.”

“I figured. Um… Wanda? Wanda… Tracy?”

He laughs a little at that. “Not half-bad. Better than what I’ve come up with in the past.”

Gwen smiles, and starts filling out the application.

* * *

Maybe Peter did a little _too_ good of a job beefing up her qualifications, because the next day Gwen gets an email from Alchemax asking when she can start.

“I don’t know about science – I mean, I can _do_ science, like in class and shit, but I’m not _great_.” She’s pacing back and forth in Peter’s ‘workshop’ (and isn’t _that_ the understatement of the century), panicking. “I’m not – I’m not _you_ , how the fuck am I meant to pull off being a child genius or whatever?” She presses the palms of her hands against her eyes and sucks in a deep breath. “I’m a fucking _drummer_ , Peter, that’s what I want to do in life – play music and be Spider-Woman! I took ballet, not AP Chem! _You’re_ the one getting a damn PhD.”

“Technically, I’m just on my Masters’ degree right now –”

“Shut _up._ ”

“Look, Gwen,” he rolls over in the desk chair, stopping himself in her path. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“How do you _know_?”

A crooked smile crinkles up his face, and it’s so heartbreakingly familiar that Gwen has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.

(She’s been doing that a lot over the past few days, sometimes to the point of making herself bleed, and also studiously ignoring the concerned looks Peter gives her when he notices it)

“Because you’re Spider-Woman. And, more than that, you’re Gwen Stacy. _She_ can do anything.”

* * *

It takes three days of lying through her teeth and constantly being on the verge of a panic attack before Gwen manages to slip into the office of the head scientist (Dr. _Olivia_ Octavius – parallel universes are weird) and somehow manages to find the correct file on the absolute _worst_ desktop she has ever seen in her _life_.

“Did you get the goober?” Peter pulls her aside as soon as she gets off the bus, back in the city at last.

Gwen’s hand has been firmly in her pocket for the last two hours – she pulls it out and reveals the USB stick. “It’s a flash drive, not a –”

“I told you, goober is easier to remember,” Peter says, curling her hand closed over it again. “Hang on tight to that – we’re swinging home.”

* * *

Gwen has spent a week in this universe, and her body isn’t happy about it. She keeps… _glitching_ , Peter says. Her atoms aren’t meant to exist here, and they know it, and they’re tearing themselves apart trying to get home.

Still, she insists on coming along when he announces his plans to sneak into Fisk Tower and stop the giant collider that would probably open a black hole under Brooklyn before it did whatever Fisk was probably hoping for.

Well, okay – rephrase that. She was always going to go along, because this might be her only chance to get home, but she was _supposed_ to stay hidden. The glitching was getting worse – if it happened in the middle of a fight, it could put her out of commission just long enough for someone to put her out of commission _permanently._

But, really… she can’t just let Peter go up against a giant green monster (that he keeps calling _Norman_ for some reason) alone.

And then there’s a _kid_ , and where the hell did _he_ come from? And he’s like them, too – they can both feel it. Something tells Gwen, though, that he isn’t from another alternate dimension, though. He’s not a Spider with a capital S yet. He can’t even save himself from a fall – Peter swoops in to do it.

No, this kid is from this world. He’s just new at the whole superpowers thing.

But she can’t waste any time worrying about the kid – now there are people shooting at them, and some guy in purple armor with jet boots, and the Green Goblin is back in the game, and –

And Gwen _glitches_ , and the Prowler gets in a good shot, and she hears something in her leg _snap_ before the feeling really registers.

_Fuck_ that hurts.

She’s in no position to help as the collider turns on and the Goblin forces Peter into the beam, and oh god, she’s going to be sick, she’s going to watch Peter Parker die _again_ and it’s all her fault _again_ and the kid is probably going to die too and _that’s_ going on her head as well and then they’ll kill _her_ and she never even got to see her dad again and oh god oh god oh god –

**_BOOM!_ **

* * *

Gwen didn’t think it was possible for her leg to hurt any more than it did after the Prowler broke it. She was, sadly, wrong. Explosions and falling from great heights don’t help broken bones, who knew?

At least her spider sense isn’t broken. She follows the low buzzing in her skull that leads her to a scene that makes bile rise in her throat. The kid, crouched over Peter’s prone form.

The panic that rises in her means that she almost misses the fact that Peter is speaking – Peter is _alive_ – for a few moments.

“There’s not much time –”

“You’re damn right there isn’t,” Gwen hisses, wobbling over to them and ignoring the white flashes in her vision. “C’mon, Spidey, we gotta get out of here.”

His mask is trashed, and she can see the pain and worry in the one blue eye visible through the smashed lens. “I’ll be –”

“If you finish that sentence with _fine_ , and an order to leave you behind, I’ll kill you myself,” she swears before turning to the kid. “I can barely walk myself, you’ll have to carry him.”

“You don’t –”

“Shut _up,_ Parker.” She gestures for the kid to get Peter out of the rubble.

“O-okay,” the kid nods, and though he’s clearly unused to the strength in his hands now, he’s achingly gentle as he picks up Peter and shifts him into a fireman’s carry that would be absolutely textbook if he was only about three inches taller. Mercifully, Peter passes out pretty much as soon as he’s off the ground.

Gwen finds them a path up to the tunnel the kid used to get down here in the first place.

“What about you?” he asks, eyes wide.

“Can’t climb like this.” She’s swaying on the spot, lips pressed together tightly behind her mask. Her leg is trembling fiercely, and she’s not even putting a fraction of her weight on it anymore. “I’ll find another way – just get him out of here. Call everyone – police, ambulance, fire, call the Coast Guard if you’ve got a number for them. Just _don’t let him die_.”

The kid nods and scrambles away.

Gwen turns and heads in the opposite direction. She’s sweating profusely now, and starting to shiver. Not a good sign.

Neither are the footsteps and angry voices. Fisk, looking for Spider-Man and ‘his little sidekick.’

_Rude_.

Gwen sucks in a breath of smoky air through her teeth and raises her arm in preparation to use her webshooter.

* * *

She doesn’t remember how she gets back to the Parker house. She doesn’t care. All that matters is that when May opens the door, she has a coat on and keys in her hand.

“He’s alive. And I think you need to be checked into the same hospital.”

She passes out in the car on the way.

* * *

(In another universe, Gwen is scared too much by the prospect of a Peter Parker who was bitten by the radioactive spider and stayed away. In another universe, Peter is alone when Fisk turns on the collider, and convinces Miles to leave him behind. In another universe, Peter Parker dies. Again.)

* * *

Gwen wakes up with a cast that goes almost all the way up to her waist, in a hospital room that smells like chocolate chip cookies layered over antiseptic. The monitor next to her bed beeps rhythmically.

The other monitor in the room beeps at the same pace, just a half-second off from Gwen’s. But even the drummer in her can’t be too upset about that maddening fact, because it’s Peter in the other bed, and the beeping means that he’s alive.

Gwen settles back into her pillows and closes her eyes again with a smile.

Whatever happened next, at least this time she didn’t let Peter Parker die.

This time, she _saved_ him.

**Author's Note:**

> please do not ask me to continue this - I know the story potential is there, but I've written what I wanted, no, needed to. If someone else wants to pick up where I left off, you are more than welcome to, just drop me a line so that I can read it!


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